REVIEW: ‘Pass Over’ by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu opens on Broadway
Image courtesy of Matt Ross PR / Provided with permission.
Pass Over, the new play by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu, was the first drama to open on Broadway since the COVID-19 pandemic upended the industry in March 2020. This 90-minute show, which is both existential in nature and grounded in today’s headlines, is a marvelous first entry for New Yorkers to take in live theater again.
The play, which began at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and then was produced by Lincoln Center Theater, follows the characters of two young Black men, Moses (Jon Michael Hill) and Kitch (Namir Smallwood), as they wait around a streetlight, talking with each other, commiserating with each other and trying to evade the scrutinizing attention of the police. As the Playbill suggests, they are in the “(future) present,” but also 2021, 1855 and 1440. Their location is also imprecise and thus expansive.
While watching Moses and Kitch enjoy each other’s company, laughing and sharing their deep thoughts, one begins to realize that Nwandu has been influenced by Samuel Beckett’s classic Waiting for Godot. The two protagonists in Pass Over are similarly waiting for something or someone, and there’s an expectancy that seems both thrilling and terrifying. They dream of a promised land (Exodus is quoted in the Playbill as well), but they also cower when the lights of a police vehicle flash nearby and violence seems imminent. They exude confidence and strength, but they also expose their fragility and concerns.
The play, directed by Danya Taymor, takes a turn when Moses and Kitch are met by a mysterious white man played by Gabriel Ebert. He is passing through on his way to his mother’s house, with a picnic basket in his hands. The trio begin talking, and truths eventually reveal themselves. As the conversation continues, sometimes in an abstract way with the characters trying to figure one another out, Nwandu’s play elevates beyond the natural and reaches a place of transcendence and even spiritualism. There are subtle hints along this journey, such as the seemingly never-ending menu items that Ebert’s character is able to pull from his picnic basket, and then there’s a big wallop toward the end of this remarkable play that will get the audience pondering and considering.
Ebert returns to the stage as a stern-looking police officer, disrupting the conversation between Moses and Kitch, and their hopeful desire to one day find that promised land. Pass Over, which uses religious symbolism and existentialism to tell its story, never feels too far away from the grounded reality at play in American society, in particular over the past 18 months or so. Commentary on police brutality and community relations frames the show, offering a portrait of both current times and past generations.
One cannot say enough about the talented performers in the Broadway show, which continues through Oct. 10 at the August Wilson Theatre. Hill and Smallwood are powerful and believable, and much of the play falls on them to convey. They embody so many different emotions and feelings on stage, from confidence to fear, and everywhere in between. They are offering important-to-see characterizations on that stage, and their arcs throughout the evening pull at the heart strings and get the brain thinking. Ebert, too, is a welcome addition to the cast. He portrays his first of two characters with a strangeness and humor that quickly turns unsettling, with the audience questioning his role’s presence and motives.
There are a lot of ideas to unpack in Pass Over, which makes the play a beautifully rendered piece of living literature. Nwandu’s thoughts on race, systemic racism, spirituality, friendship, bonding, death and poetry make for engaging, informative theater that connects various “worlds without end.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Pass Over by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu. Directed by Danya Taymor. Starring Jon Michael Hill, Namir Smallwood and Gabriel Ebert. Running time: 90 minutes. Playing through Oct. 10 at the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway. Click here for more information and tickets.
